The force behind EMILY's List

Ask around about EMILY’s List President Stephanie Schriock and two things become clear: She delivers results and isn’t afraid to knock heads in the process.

In the three years since she took the helm of the group that works to elect Democratic women, Schriock has grown its membership five-fold while helping to bring a record number of women to Congress in 2012. Combined with her earlier work to elect Sens. Al Franken and Jon Tester in a pair of challenging states for Democrats, Schriock has established herself as an A-list operative — one who’s expected play a significant role in the 2014 midterms and perhaps in 2016, for Hillary Clinton or another candidate.

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There’s also buzz that Schriock could run for Senate — speculation that’s likely to grow after former Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer’s surprise announcement Saturday that he won’t run for retiring Democratic Sen. Max Baucus’s seat next year.

Franken praised Schriock’s political savvy and people skills; others said the 40-year-old Montana native’s willingness to take names stood out.

Tester recalled Schriock’s reaction when she joined his 2006 campaign and found some staffers weren’t working “up to snuff.” She told them they needed to step it up — and when they didn’t, she fired them.

“I saw her and said, ‘What are you doing?’” Tester told POLITICO. “And [Schriock] said, ‘Well, let me tell you, you hired me to run this campaign … we need to buckle down in order to win this race.’”

“It took a lot of guts for her to do it,” he added. “She doesn’t put up with a lot of baloney.”

EMILY’s List was a natural fit for Schriock: she said she first wanted to get involved in politics when she saw NARAL Pro-Choice America President Nancy Keenan, then the Montana Superintendent of Public Instruction, speak at her high school in Montana.

“I remember walking out of there thinking, ‘Wow, this woman who grew up 30 miles from where I did is now a statewide elected official — that is the coolest thing,’” she said in an interview. “I remember being moved to wanting to serve in any capacity—and that service has kept me on the path of helping great people get elected.”

Schriock credited the environment she grew up in — Butte, a small copper mining town with a big union presence — with cementing her pro-union and solidly Democratic worldview. Her father was a medical technologist and a Vietnam veteran, and her mother was a librarian and led Schriock’s Girl Scout troop.

“I grew up around all of the conversations about the company, Anaconda Mining Company, and the fights that the unions had and I was like, ‘This is not fair for the workers,’” she said. “It was bred into me that I would be a good strong Democrat and standing up for working folks.”

She went to college in Minnesota, graduating from Mankato State University in 1995, and got her start in politics working for Minnesota congressional candidate Mary Rieder in 1996 (she lost).

Schriock took over EMILY’s List from founder Ellen Malcolm, bringing a younger generation of women in to EMILY’s List and growing its membership from 400,000 at the end of 2010 to over 2 million today. The organization also had a successful cycle in 2012, raising a record $52 million for candidates and helping to elect a record number of women to the House and the Senate.